Deathwatch: A Play (Faber Paper-covered Edition) - Softcover

Genet, Jean

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571066224 ISBN 13: 9780571066223

Publisher: Faber and Faber Ltd, 1966

Synopsis

Deathwatch, Jean Genet's earliest play, was first performed in Paris in 1949. Short and intensely powerful, it is an excellent introduction to his later dramatic work - The Maids, The Balcony and The Blacks. The French text, published by Gallimard, was extensively altered by Genet in the course of rehearsal; and Bernard Frechtman's translation is of the final acting version, which supersedes the original published text.

About this title

About the Author:

Jean Genet was born in Paris in 1910. An illegitimate child who never knew his parents, he was abandoned to the Public Assistance Authorities. He was ten when he was sent to a reformatory for stealing; thereafter he spent time in the prisons of nearly every country he visited in thirty years of prowling through the European underworld. With ten convictions for theft in France to his credit he was, the eleventh time, condemned to life imprisonment. Eventually he was granted a pardon by President Auriol as a result of appeals from France's leading artists and writers led by Jean Cocteau.$$$His first novel, Our Lady of the Flowers, was written while he was in prison, followed by Miracle of the Rose, the autobiographical The Thief's Journal, Querelle of Brest and Funeral Rites. He wrote six plays: The Balcony, The Blacks, The Screens, The Maids, Deathwatch and Splendid's (the manuscript of which was rediscovered only in 1993). Jean Genet died in 1986.

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber and Faber Ltd
• Publication date: 1966
• ISBN 10: 0571066224
• ISBN 13: 9780571066223
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 40